Stocks Stall in Light Trading

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& #8226; National

Stocks barely moved before the Christmas weekend on Friday, even though durable goods orders jumped by the largest amount in six months.


The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 6.17, or 0.1 percent, to 10,883.27. The S & P; 500 rose 0.54, or 0.04 percent, to 1,268.66. The Nasdaq Composite Index added 2.93, or 0.1 percent, to 2,249.42.


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& #8226; Local


Local movers were led by Zenith National Insurance Corp., which gained 2.4 percent to $46.33 and Guitar Center Inc., which rose 1.6 percent to $51.06. On the down side, Alliance Bancshares California dropped 5 percent to $13.30 and shares of Occidental Petroleum Corp. dipped 0.8 percent to $82.46.


Shares of Staar Surgical Co. jumped 47.5 percent to a new 52-week high of $8.51 after the Monrovia-based surgical products maker said U.S. health regulators approved its Myopic Visian ICL lens for use in the correction of nearsightedness in adults. Staar expects to begin shipping the Visian in six to eight weeks.


KB Home and Ryland Group Inc. fell 1.4 percent to $74.50 and 1.4 percent to $73.02, respectively, after the government reported that new home sales last month posted their biggest drop in nearly 12 years, providing fresh evidence the nation’s red-hot housing market is slowing down.


Overhill Farms Inc. slipped 3.7 percent to $3.42 after the Vernon-based frozen food manufacturer said that its largest shareholder, Levine Leichtman Capital Partners II L.P., sold all of the 5.8 million outstanding shares of common stock it held in the company. The shares represent 38 percent of Overhill’s common stock. The purchasers were several institutional investors, including Lehman Brothers’ Global Trading Strategies Group and William Blair & Co.


En Pointe Technologies Inc. dipped 2.5 percent to $2.35 after the El Segundo-based information technology products provider reported a fourth-quarter loss of 5 cents per share. A year earlier, the company posted earnings of 7 cents per share.

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